• • •
Apply, Mr Sam Goodhead, Parramatta Post Office.
Both Sam and Esmeralda Goodhead laughed uproariously as Mary concluded.
'Aye, it does ya good to 'ave it read out loud. Though we knows it orf by 'eart, we can't read neiver of us, so it's good to 'ave it read by someone else once in a while,' Sam declared happily.
This explained why the publican and his wife had not broached the subject of the label on the Tomahawk bottle, for they were by now on their sixth bottle.
Esmeralda finally rose and prepared supper, a meal of roast beef with potatoes and swedes and a most delicious pickled cabbage. She filled four plates for her children and sent them outside to eat, and then brought three more heaped helpings to the table where they had been drinking. It was a meal as good as any Mary had tasted, and much more than she could eat. She excused herself after having finished less than half the contents of the plate.
'Never you mind, love, the little 'uns'll polish that orf soon enough, or Sam 'ere!' Esmeralda laughed.
After tea Sam produced a clay pipe, and when he had it well stoked so that the room was fuggy with smoke, Mary addressed him quietly.
'I has a proposition to put to you, Sam,' she said, for they were now on Christian name terms.
'Put away, lass,' Sam Goodhead said, puffing contentedly on his pipe.
'It be in strictest confidence.'
Sam nodded. 'Aye, everythin' is. I'll not tell unless I can make a profit out of it,' he said with a wink.
'That be the point,' Mary said. 'If you stays stum, you makes a very big profit; if you talks, you owes me for the beer!'
'What's ya mean, lass?' Sam said, now most interested and leaning forward. Esmeralda, who was scouring a pot with her back to them, suddenly stopped scrubbing.
'I needs some advice and help, nothing more, 'cept I don't want any folks to know about it right off!'
'That's not so easy 'round 'ere.' Sam laughed. 'Scratch the 'ead of a pimple on yer arse and it's the talk o' the bleedin' town fer days. Your comin'
'ere today is already the news o' the month!'
'Year!' Esmeralda called.
'What is it then?' Sam Goodhead asked.
Mary told him that she needed someone who wouldn't talk about it to take her as far as it was possible to go up the Kermandie River and thereafter to give her, if possible, some directions which would take her to the high mountains. 'That's all, a boatman what will keep his gob shut and some directions possibly.'
Sam Goodhead whistled. 'And you'll give us what?'
'The whole consignment o' beer I brought,' Mary said.
Sam Goodhead sighed. 'I'm sorely tempted, lass.'
Esmeralda turned from her pots. 'You'll do no such thing, Sam!' she shouted.
Sam Goodhead shrugged. 'If I did that, Mary, it be the same as killin' you. Ya can't take such a journey all alone. Ya can't even take a journey like that with a platoon o' troopers. I'm sorry, lass, it be suicide!'
Mary picked up an empty bottle of Tomahawk and read from the back label. Then she told them about the abduction of Tommo and Hawk and the news that Hawk, at least, had been captured by a wild man and had been seen by some Aboriginals in the region of the Hartz Mountains.
'Them blacks are a lyin', thievin' bunch. Most be now locked away, thank Gawd, but there still be a few 'round 'ere. Ya can't trust 'em though,' Sam said. His pipe had gone dead and he now set about scraping the spent tobacco from the top of the bowl and relighting what was left.
'Sam, I'm going anyway, all you can do is make it easier!' Mary cried.
Eventually she convinced Sam Goodhead that nothing would keep her from looking for Hawk.
'We've a lad works fer me at the pub, he 'as a boat and will keep 'is gob shut if I tells 'im,' the publican said. 'You'd best leave at first light, that way the town won't known yer gorn.' He puffed at his pipe. 'Though it won't take long before the bloody timber getters know!' He sighed. 'Gawd 'elp ya, Mary Abacus, yer a brave woman, and if I didn't know better, I'd say a very foolish one! If ya gets back alive I'll take yer beer as bonus. If ya doesn't, which be more than likely, we'll use the money fer a tombstone, though I'll vouch yer body won't be lyin' beneath it!'
Mary was surprised to see that Esmeralda was quietly weeping in the corner.
A heavy mist lay over the water as Mary stood on the shore waiting for a lad she knew only as Tom. She heard the slow splash of oars through the fog and soon the outline of a small, flat-bottomed boat appeared through the swirling vapour. Behind it was a second boat, a smaller dinghy, attached by a rope to the boat the boy was rowing. The boy shipped the oars and Mary pulled the boat onto the shore and stepped into it. The young lad standing midships took her canvas bag and stowed it in the bow, and held his hand out to steady her as she seated herself in the stern. Then, without saying a word, he pushed the boat back into deeper water, pulled it around with one oar until the boat pointed upstream, and began to row.
The Kermandie was a slow-flowing river, but rowing against the current with another skiff in tow was not an easy matter, and every half hour Tom beached the little boats and, his chest puffing violently, was forced to rest. About nine of the clock the mist lifted and the huge trees, which had appeared simply as shadowy outlines in the misted landscape, now showed clearly on either shore. Mary found herself locked into a narrow ribbon of water walled as surely and steeply by the giant eucalypts as if the trees had been sheer cliffs of solid rock. A flock of yellow-tailed black cockatoos flew over at one point, their tinny screeching the only sound they'd heard since leaving but for the lap of the oars in the water and once the flap of a flock of chestnut teal as they rose in alarm from the water. The sun was now well up and Mary worked herself out of her coat. They passed a black cormorant on a dead branch, its wings spread to the new sun, and soon after a white-faced heron stood on the shore, its long neck and sharp-beaked head moving in slow jerks, made curious by the slap of the oars. Though the trees on either side of the river still looked cold and dark, the glare from the water and the sun overhead made Mary feel uncomfortably hot. Tom's shirt was dark with sweat and his long, lank hair lay flat against his head. Mary saw beads of perspiration cutting thin streaks down his dirty neck.
The further they travelled the more dense the trees became. Giant prehistoric tree ferns, some of them forty feet high, grew at the water's edge, and occasionally they'd hear the splash of an unseen creature plop into the water from the riverbank. At one stage Mary, intimidated by her surroundings, whispered to Tom simply so that she might make some sort of human contact. But he held a finger to his lips. Once, about an hour out from the settlement, they heard the sound of an axe striking. Sharp, regular echoes seemed to bounce off the trees, though from somewhere much deeper into the forest. Mary was not sure whether the sound was frightening or comforting, but Tom shipped oars for a few moments and listened while the boat drifted backwards in the current. Then, Tom taking great care with his strokes, they moved on again.
After four hours with regular rests they came to a waterfall and Tom pulled the boats into shore.
'This be it, missus, we can't go further,' he shouted, his voice almost lost in the crash and tumble of water over rock.
Mary stepped onto the shore and Tom pulled the boat fully into the little pebbled beach, untied the smaller dinghy and dragged it also onto the safety of the river-bank. Then, straining mightily, he pulled the first dinghy into a clump of reeds and fern, piling the branches of dead trees over it until it was impossible to see. He placed three rocks close to each other, two together and one pointing to where the boat was hidden.
'I'll be back for the boat in ten days!' he shouted, pointing to the fern and reeds where it lay concealed.
Mary nodded and handed the lad a pound. He grinned, his work well rewarded. 'Thank 'ee, ma'am, Gawd bless 'ee now!' he shouted, touching the forelock of damp hair. Then he pushed the smaller dinghy back into the water. The tiny boat turned in the churning current at the foot of the falls, then the oars dug in and he steadied it, waved briefly and began to row away.
Mary watched as he disappeared around a bend in the river, rowing lazily in the firm current now driven faster
